First Chapter Of 'All For One'
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What is All For One about?
Mary Austin is the kind of teacher that parents adore and children wish for. Firm and compassionate, a guiding light in their lives, she would do anything to protect her students.
But that loyalty is tested when the school's sadistic bully is found dead on campus, and suspicion falls on six children in her class. None willing to talk. To point the finger.
To reveal the killer.
Faced with this, Mary finds herself confronted with dark memories from her own childhood. Fragmentary flashes from the past that test the bounds of her reality, the onslaught worsening when a tenacious detective is brought in to close the case.
On loan from the Seattle Police Department, Detective Dooley Ashe is plagued by his own demons, but focuses on breaking through the wall of silence the children have erected. Up against a town indifferent toward the crime and suspects virtually untouchable by the law, Dooley turns to Mary as an avenue to the truth.
As an unlikely closeness develops between Dooley and Mary, the suspected children close ranks, worried that one of their own is ready to break and give the detective what he wants.
But when unseen adversaries push back, with both damaging and deadly results, Dooley and Mary are forced to face their personal limits as they each discover the unthinkable identity of the real killer.
I hope you enjoy the sample and will enjoy the entire book.
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One
Joey Travers, president of Miss Austin's sixth grade class at Windhaven Elementary School, stood from where he had knelt next to Guy Edmond. The blood-smeared bat was in his hands.
Four sets of eyes followed his rise, all but Elena Markworth's, her usually reluctant gaze fixed fully upon the crimson pool spreading on the asphalt beneath her tormentor's creviced head.
"If we stick to the story," Joey began, fingers curling around the slick wood handle, tips pressing hard on the grain, "then no one will get into trouble. Everything will be all right. Just like it used to be."
The stares did not doubt him. They wanted to believe him.
"You're sure he didn't see who it was?" Bryce Hool asked, his glasses sliding low on his nose. He pushed them up with a single finger.
"I'm sure," Joey confirmed, and held the bat out to the class treasurer. "Here."
"There's blood on it," Bryce protested.
"Only at the top," Joey assured him, and Bryce took the bat and squeezed his hands where Joey had.
Michael Prentiss, the class sergeant at arms, watched Bryce turn toward him, bat held tip to the gray morning sky, in front as a knight might present his sword reverently to a king.
"Take it," Joey prompted.
Michael did, grasping the Louisville Slugger as he did in little league, testing its heft, staring at the sweet spot stained the color of a cherry Slurpee. After a moment his eyes drifted down to the bully lying outside their classroom, and over the one visible hand which reached for the mouth unnaturally, as a baby might when trying to suck its fingers. He knew that hand, and the one he could not see, mostly as fists, and he remembered the black eye, and going to the principal's office because he had fought back, and he thought how glad he was that Guy Edmond was not going to be able to use those fists this day, those sharp-knuckled pile drivers that belonged at Bidwell Junior High and not in Miss Austin's class.
Guy deserved a lot. A whole lot, Michael truly believed. But something made him wonder if he deserved what had just been dealt him. He thought on that and flexed his fingers on the bat, the backward 'S' shape of Guy Edmond's still and frightful form holding him rapt, and for a reason he did not quite understand his lower lip grew prominent and began to quiver. An uncomfortable warmth drained over his eyes.
"Here," Michael said, shoving the bat at Paula Jean Allenton and turning away.
"All right," Paula Jean, PJ to all but her mother, took the bat lest it be dropped in Michael's haste to be rid of it, and added her own fingerprints to the handle. She studied it up and down, holding it far from her body as the early fall breeze picked up her loose brown hair and swept it across her face. "What about higher?"
"Higher where?" Joey asked as he tucked the loose tail of his shirt back into his pants.
"On the bat. Should we touch it where it gets fatter?"
Joey's trim, gonna-be-a-lady-killer-someday face shook slightly. "Where you've got it is fine."
PJ, the class vice-president, nodded and put force into her grip, like she did when her younger brother got stupid and needed a pinch to remind him who was the boss of the bedroom they shared. Then, like Michael, she looked at Guy Edmond's motionless, lanky body, but she did not recoil, and she did not let emotion overwhelm her. No, she thought instead of how much she would like to lift the bat high in the air and bring it down onto Guy's back, again and again, beating him until she could hear bones snap, until she felt like she'd gotten some payback for all that he'd done to her and her friends. He'd almost ruined everything in Miss Austin's class, the best class PJ had ever been in. The best class any of them had ever been in.
But they weren't going to let him ruin anything ever again.
"Chocolate chip," PJ muttered quietly as her stare simmered on Guy. "Lemon pecan. Peanut but—"
"PJ?" Joey said.
Her eyes snapped up, her quiet mantra interrupted. "Yeah?"
"You're okay, right?"
"I'm okay," PJ answered, silently glad that he had asked. That meant he probably cared. Maybe even liked her. Maybe.
"Jeff, your turn," Joey said.
Only one hand came up, the other held immobile against Jeff Bernstein's chest in a cast of plaster and a blue sling. "My left hand still won't open."
"Just use your right," Joey said, and looked up and down the walkway that ran between the bungalows and Windhaven's ivy-covered back fence. There was still no one in sight, but that would change when the bell that ended recess rang. He looked at his watch, a birthday gift his dad had sent from Florida. They had ten minutes. "Hurry."
Jeff, the class secretary, used all the strength of his off hand to take the bat from PJ, his face twisting into a grimace, pale fingers wrapping the handle. "It's heavy."
As the bat began to teeter in Jeff's hand, Joey looked to Elena. "Take the bat."
The shy brown eyes did not move, but one of Elena's hands came up and wiped a moist spot from her cheek. She pulled the hand away, moving it into her seemingly frozen field of vision. A bright red streak cut a diagonal swath across her small palm.
"PJ, clean it off her," Joey said, and his vice president spit on a piece of tissue retrieved from the pocket of her jeans and wiped Elena's hands first, then her face.
"How's that?" PJ asked.
"Good," Joey said after a cursory look. "Dry her hands."
PJ held both of Elena's hands palms up and thought briefly, then guided them to the sides of the green skirt the nearly catatonic girl wore and rubbed them against the material until they were dry.
Minding the puddling blood, Joey moved to where Elena stood against the rough stucco wall of the bungalow. He was taller than her by at least four inches, and bent slightly forward to see past the hair framing her downcast face. "Elena?"
Short, erratic puffs of air tossed her chest out and pulled it back in a sob-like rhythm. But there were no tears. Her face was dry, as dry as her expression, as barren as her gaze.
"You've got to do this," Joey said, trying to keep a calm voice. "You've got to do this. You've got to hold the bat."
A visible bulge rolled slowly down Elena's throat.
"Don't let him mess everything up," Joey urged her, gently, though the dwindling time might change that very soon.
"He picked on you more than any of us," Bryce added.
The bat began to tilt precariously in Jeff's hand. "Someone take it."
Joey reached past Elena for the bat, but two hands clamped around its base before his. Two small hands suddenly filled with strength. When Joey let his grip go slack he swore he heard Elena's knuckles cracking as her fingers kneaded the handle.
"Elena?" PJ said, watching the wide eyes come up from Guy and settle upon the glorified stick.
The quietness that walled Elena Markworth in normal times was reluctant to give back what it had seized in this very unusual time, but slowly she looked away from the bat to PJ and said, "Please don't tell my father..."
With Michael still turned away, Joey exchanged worried glances with the others before gingerly taking the bat from Elena. Her expression melted as the cool wood left her hands, eyes going half closed, noncommittal mouth sagging at the corners, and breaths slowing. She turned her palms face up, examined them through glistening eyes, and pressed both against her face as real sobs racked her entire body. She took a half step toward PJ and collapsed into the bigger girl's arms.
"Joey, she's not going to hold up," Jeff commented direly.
"Yes she is!" PJ snapped back. Her arms held Elena close, head tucked sideways into the crook of her neck.
"He... He..."
"It's all right," PJ said, comforting Elena as the others watched, rubbing circles on her back, wondering if she was doing this right. It was what her mother did for her little brother when he scraped his knee, or got stung by a bee, or whenever he found some reason to bawl his eyes out over some silly little thing. But this was no silly little thing.
Elena's eyes flicked open and stared through tears at the body. "He...he...he..."
The sputter of words collapsed into sobs once again before the revelation was complete, but they all knew what had happened. Knew without a doubt.
Now all they had to do was forget.
"Elena," Joey said. "You're going to do this, right?"
"Joey..." PJ challenged protectively.
"We're running out of time," Joey said.
Bryce looked at his watch. "Six minutes."
With a swipe of his sleeve across his upper lip, Michael faced the group once again. "We gotta hurry."
"Elena?" Joey said again.
"She can do it," PJ answered for her.
A cheer rose from the ball field on the opposite side of the building. Someone had just scored in kickball.
"Joey?" Jeff said, nearly pleading. He could almost feel the rapid fire clang of the bell threatening. They all could.
"You're going to stick to the story," Joey told Elena, confidence and question both in the statement. He was surprised and relieved when her tear-stained face concurred with a nod against PJ's chest. "I knew you would."
PJ's hand moved to Elena's head and stroked her shiny brown hair. "He's not going to hurt you anymore."
"Or anyone," Jeff added. Beneath the cast his skin tingled in a pesky itch, all courtesy of their very own bully.
Or anyone, Joey thought to himself, agreeing as one who knew what sort of hurt Guy Edmond could dish out. Knowing as only he could know. As only he would know.
'All for one.' Miss Austin's favorite saying rang suddenly in Joey's head for the second time in twenty minutes, earlier as a spark and now as a gentle shove to remind him that most of what had to be done still lay ahead. 'All for one.'
He looked to Jeff, then Michael, then Bryce, then to PJ, who clutched Elena tight like a favorite doll in danger of being lost. "We can do this."
Jeff glanced at each of his friends. "He's right. We can."
"We're just kids," Joey reminded them. "They can't do the same things to us that they could do to a grown-up. They can't make us say anything. We just stick to the story and forget about everything else."
An odd little smile curled onto Jeff's face. Meanness spiced the expression as he nodded and parroted, "We're just kids. Who doesn't believe a kid?"
"All right." Joey looked at the bat in his hands. It was time. "Bryce? You know what to do?"
The class treasurer nodded and nervously checked his watch. "I've gotta go now if I'm gonna beat the bell."
"Go do it," Joey said, and let the bat fall from his hands as Bryce sprinted off toward the office. The fat end thunked off the asphalt, then the handle, the whole bat 'walking' toward the body, settling into a roll after a second and coming to rest against Guy Edmond's back. A wet, gurgling hiss escaped his lips and was lost with the breeze rustling fast through the ivy.
* * *
Veta Nelson, Windhaven's school secretary, stood board-straight at the reception counter in the main office, nimble fingers alphabetizing the morning's absence slips the same as they had every day during first recess for almost nineteen years.
But somewhere in the T's her fingers froze and her eyes came up, looking over bifocals that might have seemed pleasantly grandmotherly if not for the unmistakable fact that Veta Nelson was none too pleased by what she was hearing echo in from the main hallway. Feet, little feet, tapping on old tile. Tapping far too fast. Far, far too fast. Running.
Running her way. A grin simmered on Veta's aged mouth as she came around the counter and stepped into the hallway just as the inexcusably fast clomping of loosely tied sneakers began to slow for a turn. She put her hand out, ready to grab a fistful of shirt as the offender tried to speed by toward the stairs, but the offender instead ran straight into her as he tried to steer into the office.
"Wait one minute, young man," Veta Nelson said, pulling the small head away from her midriff and holding it in both hands to clearly identify the... "Bryce? Bryce Hool?"
"Gu... Gu..." A gasping stammer was all Bryce could manage, and it was uncomfortably real. He'd run faster than he could ever remember running. His side stung. His chest ached. And, worst of all, Mrs. Nelson had a funny look on her face, like she already didn't believe him...and he hadn't even told a lie. He wondered if he'd have to.
Veta bent a bit to eye the unlikely scofflaw severely. This nice young man? Running away with first prize in spelling a bee, yes. But running in the halls? Disregarding school rule number 1? "Bryce Hool, just what do you—"
"Guy's hurt," Bryce interrupted, forcing the words out between gulps of air. His glasses were askew from the collision.
"What guy?"
"Guy... Guy Edmond," Bryce panted.
"Hurt?" There was one and only one excuse for running in the halls, Veta knew. One had better be running for help. "Hurt how?"
Bryce fixed his glasses, sucked a breath of air, and said, "He's hurt bad. His head's bleeding." With that Veta straightened so that Bryce now saw her eyes through the half lenses that made them look small, like dollops of chocolate on vanilla cookies. "And he's not moving, Mrs. Nelson."
"Where is he?" Veta asked sharply.
"Outside our room. By the side fence."
Veta loosed her grip on Bryce and turned back toward the office. The first person she saw was that day's parent volunteer. "Judy! Get the nurse! Now! Tell her to bring her bag!"
Judy, her own child a kindergartner, hesitated momentarily then sprang from a desk covered with files and disappeared into an adjoining room. Less than a minute later a painfully thin woman followed her into the office and around the counter to where Veta stood with Bryce.
"What's the ruckus?" the school nurse, Nan Jakowitz, asked.
"Follow him," Veta said, pointing to Bryce. "One of his classmates is bleeding."
"I think he's dead," Bryce told her.
"I'm sure he's not dead," the nurse assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Blood is scary. It always looks worse than it is. Now show me where he is."
"I'll get their teacher. Go, go," Veta urged both adult and child, returning to the office as they rushed off, fast feet again sounding in the hall. Through the office she moved quickly, into the teacher's lounge, where she had seen Bryce and Guy's teacher go when first recess began. But the room and its sagging chairs were now empty. She was about to turn and leave when the muffled hiss of water running drew her eyes to the ladies' room door just to her left. "Mary? Are you in there?"
"Yes. I'll be out in a—"
Veta stepped close and touched the cold wood of the door. "Mary, one of your children is hurt." First silence, then a rush of air being drawn in. A steadying breath, Veta could tell without having to see. And then the privacy latch clicking an instant before the door jerked inward.
Mary Austin stood with her hand gripping the doorknob, young eyes wide, her face a barren mask of shock. "What do you mean?"
"Hurt, Mary," Veta said, putting a hand on the young teacher's arm. So young, yet so talented. Only three years teaching and already she had the wisdom of many of the hair-in-a-bun veterans Veta had seen come and go during her tenure. The Mary Austins, those possessing the true gift of teaching, were the rarest of the rare, and each held a special place in the secretary's heart. This one more so than others, because Mary Austin had done more than teach. Veta had seen her work miracles. "Come on. The nurse is on her way there now. Come on."
Mary watched Veta Nelson take a few steps before she, too, began to move. Just into the hall the bell ending recess sounded, a staccato clanging that followed Veta and Mary as they ran out of the main building and across the playground toward the sixth grade bungalows.
* * *
Nan Jakowitz passed Bryce as they neared a crush of students swarming outside Room 18, pushing through the chest high mass until she broke into the center and stood facing a distinctly separate group of five children gathered in a tight arc. They were staring at her feet, and when she looked down she saw the crimson sheen formed around her tan flats and understood why.
"Jesus, JESUS, JESUS," Nurse Jakowitz said in rising tone, giving her exclamation of horror a tinge of religious declaration. Her feet stepped gingerly out of the blood covering the ground to Guy Edmond's front, and moved to a spot near his back where she knelt and put two fingers to his neck.
She counted silently, One... Two... Three...
And nothing. Her eyes flitted from Guy's neck to the ground, and she saw the bat, its fat end splashed grotesquely red.
Four... Five... Six...
Her eyes came up from the bat and fell upon the arc of children fixed close to the body. Bryce had joined them. They were six in number now, and they looked at her with eyes that seemed collective, individuality gone from their expressions. The littlest girl, held close by a bigger girl in one protective arm, sniffled, but her gaze never broke.
"What happened?" Nan asked, directing her question to Bryce.
"We found him," Joey answered for the class treasurer. For them all.
"Found him?" Nan pressed.
Five of the six nodded. Elena simply bore reddened, gaunt eyes at the nurse.
The breeze swirled through the fence and over the crowd, reminding all of the season. It might have chilled Nan Jakowitz, but a prickly rise of goose bumps had already done so.
She looked again to the body, counting, Seven... Eight... Nine...
Nothing. Not a hint of a pulse. Nan Jakowitz drew her hand away from the neck and swallowed hard. Her eyes played over the wet red asphalt. There's too much blood, she thought immediately. Not enough left in his body for CPR to do any good. He's really dead. She looked up at the six again, at Bryce in particular as someone pushed through the outer crowd.
"Is he going to be okay?" Bryce asked.
Nan's head cocked at the almost vacant concern in his voice. The quizzical expression still showed when Veta Nelson and Mary Austin made it through the students and gawked first at the little body, then at the blood, then at the nurse.
"How bad?" Veta asked, drawing deep for composure. Mary stepped just past her, eyes glued on Guy Edmond.
Nan shifted her attention to Veta and said, after a short pause, "He's dead."
Five of the six stole sideways, leaden glances at one and other. Elena shuddered upon the nurse's pronouncement, then quickly stilled. One girl in the crowd stumbled back toward the fence and covered her mouth with clenched fists, her blonde hair tossed across her face by the wind. Dozens of youthful mouths repeated the news in hushed tones.
Dead? He's dead. Guy's dead. Dead?
Dead....
"Dead?" Veta asked, eyes narrow, as if she'd just been told something incomprehensible. An impossibility.
Nan nodded and rose from her crouch.
"Oh dear God," Veta said, putting a single, trembling hand to her mouth and reaching for Mary's arm with the other. It found only space. Mary was backing away, inching steps that cleaved an opening in the crowd. "Mary?" How this must hurt... "Oh, Mary."
The six looked to their teacher, and she now to them, forcing her eyes from the crushed little head spilling life onto the blacktop.
"Mary?" Veta repeated.
And as quickly as it had begun, Mary Austin's retreat ceased, but not because of words. Her eyes had moved from Joey, to Bryce, to Michael, to P.J, to Elena, and then to Jeff. When it settled upon him, all energy drained from her, pouring down some invisible channel ripped through her core, cascading from her chest, washing hot through her stomach, and leaving through legs drawn hollow and made papery. For an instant she tried to tell herself what she had seen was just a twitch. A nervous tick. Expected. Normal, considering.
But it wasn't. As clear as the horror that was strewn between them, she knew it was no twitch, no involuntary response. It was what it was. And what it was was a wink.
Jeff had given her a slow, purposeful wink, one that existed between only them.
She shook her head as her knees went weak, legs turning soft, the vast gray sky above becoming a great fuzzy spiral that followed her as she twisted and twisted downward into a harsh, icy blackness.
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